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panacea sought for ailing rail network
by alex hess
the hammering of the last spike on the railroad
linking alexandria and cairo in 1856 marked the completion of the
first railway line in africa and the middle east. it was the beginning
of the golden age of railways, an era of glorified locomotives,
luxurious first-class carriages and bustling rail stations.
in the 150 years since, however, egypt’s railway system has
aged somewhat less than gracefully. two tragic railway accidents
in august and september have rekindled calls for repairing the nation’s
ailing rail network. a chronic lack of funding and an entrenched
bureaucracy have made reform difficult, and many officials admit
little has been done since the horrific train fire in 2002 that
killed 373 passengers.
while fares have gone up since 2002, promises to improve the safety
of trains have not been fulfilled. many carriages still lack fire
extinguishers, telephones and emergency brake switches. since the
2002 tragedy, there has been “nothing for upgrading communications
or safety equipment on the [rail] network,” admits azza saleh,
adviser to the minister of transport for finance and investment.
the egyptian railways authority (era) operates over 5,000 kilometers
of rail, shuttling up to 3 million passengers per day. accidents
are common – far too common according to independent estimates
of between 800 and 900 a year. the ministry of transport, however,
puts the figure closer to 270, a discrepancy it says is the result
of differing definitions of “accident.” between 2001
and 2005, this included an average of five collisions, 221 derailments
and 40 fires each year.
admittedly, most of these incidents are minor. others are disastrous.
on august 21, 58 people were killed and 143 injured when a cairo-bound
train screamed past a malfunctioning signal and slammed into a stationary
train near qalioub station, 20 kilometers north of cairo.
punitive action came quick. the following day, minister of transport
mohamed mansour sacked era director hanafi abdel qawi and suspended
his deputy, eid mahran, pending an investigation into the cause
of the accident. the public prosecutor subsequently charged 14 railway
officials with criminal negligence for failing to fix faulty signaling
equipment, which led to the disaster. “whenever an accident
happens, whoever is responsible should face his destiny,”
transport ministry spokesman sameh abdullah told business monthly.
sackings and criminal negligence charges usually follow transport
disasters, but do little to address the root cause of the accidents.
in fact, just two weeks after the qalioub crash, a passenger train
and a freight train collided head-on in shibin al-qanater, a town
30 kilometers north of cairo, killing five and injuring 28. the
untimely crash had the public wondering: “how could such an
accident happen during a period of increased scrutiny?”
mansour, having already weathered public fury over last february’s
ferry disaster, which killed over 1,000 people, blamed underfunding.
however, he pledged that improvements are on the way – and
that this time they’re not simply hollow promises. he said
le 8.5 billion has been allocated for the refurbishment of the nation’s
rail network. he has also commissioned a report, due in december,
which will study the feasibility of various investments in railway
infrastructure. tenders will be issued for approved projects.
abdullah reflects on the enormity of the task. “we have to
tackle all aspects at once and we have to do it radically,”
he says. the le 8.5 billion will be used to purchase new locomotives
to replace its aging fleet, refurbish many of its dilapidated carriages,
upgrade the rails themselves, balance the books and, perhaps most
significantly, install an electric signaling system. the current
manually operated signaling system is highly vulnerable to human
error, he notes.
human error is a particularly troubling issue. a report commissioned
by ain shams university following the 2002 train fire identified
low salaries and poor working conditions as the root cause of the
railway’s sorry state. abdullah tentatively agrees, but stresses
that other factors are also to blame, namely underfunding and antiquated
equipment. “we can say it is an accumulation of several things
that [have] been happening through all these years,” he says.
“yes, the condition of the workers is not at its best and
the minister has a plan to tackle this problem.”
a statement issued by the ministry following a meeting convened
late last month between mansour and the department heads of the
era announced that the wages and medical benefits of railway employees
would be increased in an effort to improve the quality of service
provided by the railways. according to the statement, the minister
is “not content with the level of service and the wages in
the ministry and he confirmed that the ministry is currently doing
a comprehensive study regarding the issue of improving the wages
as soon as possible.”
it was not specified how much wages were set to increase but it
does indicate a commitment to addressing working conditions. the
ministry has also announced plans to initiate training programs
for employees to reduce human error, though details have yet to
be released.
meanwhile, the ministry plans to make better use of its existing
assets, particularly era’s 195 million square meters of land
holdings. the egyptian railway projects & transport co. (erpt),
a subsidiary of era that operates under private investment law,
was established in march 2004 to develop and manage this land. by
rewriting outdated era contracts in its own name, it bypasses age-old
legislation that forbids era from leasing out its assets for more
than three years. and that opens up many options for investors.
erpt officials say there is no plan to sell the land holdings, but
they may allow build-operate-transfer (bot) contracts of up to 25
years to encourage private investors to develop these plots. yet
even with the revenue these investments will generate, as abdullah
points out, it will be extremely difficult to make significant improvements
to the railways due to financial constraints. he explains that era
has an annual budget deficit of le 1.5 billion, primarily due to
subsidized ticket prices. the state treasury has to date covered
its debt, but this is a less than ideal arrangement.
speaking at last month’s euromoney conference in cairo, minister
of finance youssef boutros-ghali lambasted the current railway subsidy
system and argued that in order to rationalize the budget and improve
the railway system, especially for the poor, the subsidies must
be included in the national budget instead of hidden in era’s
ledger. “the unfortunate tragedies that have hit the [railway]
sector are the result of 30 or 40 years of not recognizing that
if we want to help lower income groups... we should do it through
the budget, not through the railway company. and from now on this
is what we will do,” he said. “the less privileged are
entitled to low transportation costs – it’s their right...
but then let’s recognize... that it will cost us [up to] le
700 million per year and put this in the budget.”
although privatization of existing infrastructure is politically
unfeasible, private investment is in the works. the ministry of
transport recently established the egyptian holding company for
transport in partnership with investment firm abu dhabi investment
house, uae-based national holding company and bahraini investment
bank gulf finance house. with initial capital of $1 billion, the
holding company is set to invest le 170 billion in the egyptian
transportation sector over the coming five years. railway projects
under consideration include a proposed tourist rail line running
between the nile and the red sea, and two commuter railways –
one connecting cairo and sadat city, and the other running between
alexandria and borg al arab.
mamdouh hamza, ceo of the engineering consulting firm hamza associates,
has his own ideas of how infrastructure investments should be allocated.
“the [first priority] should be control and communication
systems,” he says. “number two should be upgrading the
locomotives.” the third priority is to fix the tracks to handle
faster trains, he says. “existing track is limited to 110km/h
– even if actual rails were changed, the curvature and inclination
limits [trains] to 110km/h.” the solution, he argues, is to
lay new track that supports speeds over 160km/h, though this will
require significant capital.
at the transport minister’s request, hamza associates conducted
a study of the existing qena-safaga track to determine whether it
would be suitable to transport tourist traffic from the nile to
the red sea. in its preliminary report, the firm noted that the
existing qena-safaga freight line is unable to support the high-speed
rail traffic. instead, it recommended that the ministry create a
new rail line between qift and al quseir able to shuttle tourists
quickly and safely.
the courage to take an alternative route around a problem could
be applied to more than simply rail lines. the railways sector itself
could benefit from fresh thinking. “strategy is more important
than money,” says hamza. “money can be poorly spent.”
yet money can also be borrowed and, with a good strategy, spent
wisely.
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